The Development of the Banana Fruit

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Abstract
1. The banana fruit is either seeded or vegetatively parthenocarpic; the latter may or may not be seed fertile, depending on a complex of cytogenetical factors. Edible pulp (a starchy parenchyma), which fills the fruit in parthenocarpic types and surrounds the seeds in seeded bananas, mostly originates from the outer lining of the loculus (the innermost layer of the pericarp). 2. The graphs of growth in volume of seeded banana fruits are sigmoid in shape. Those of parthenocarpic fruits are variable but are not sigmoid and the shapes are related to specific origins. 3. Growth rates are related to certain ovule behaviours, to seed content of the fruit, and to ploidy. 4. α-Naphthylacetic acid induces parthenocarpy in seeded bananas and stimulates it in weakly parthenocarpic types. By contrast, coumarin, a hormone inhibitor, inhibits it in strongly parthenocarpic forms. 5. Physiological and genetical implications of the results are discussed. Fruit development is thought to be under hormone control and two phases of development of the parthenocarpic fruit can be distinguished. The desirability of distinguishing between the terms ‘seedless’ and ‘parthenocarpic’ is pointed out.

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